


As Tall As Cliffs

by oflights



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (really light spanking sorry), Bets & Wagers, M/M, New Year's Resolutions, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 13:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10413498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflights/pseuds/oflights
Summary: Tyson and Gabe both made 2015 resolutions to give each other more compliments. It turns into a whole thing, and ends about how you'd expect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, first of all: [WATCH THIS!](https://youtu.be/DiuAkzOX18g?t=2m24s) Very important! Doesn't make much sense without it!
> 
> This takes place in the second half of the 2014-2015 season. At some point (so like, in the Left-Handed Kisses sequel in the works) I'm going to have to address the horrors of this current season, but we're not there yet folks!! Let's travel back in time to when Avs games were still semi-competitive in February for a bit. 
> 
> Title is from Margot, beta is from Bridget, and I hope you guys like this ridiculousness!!

On January 4th, the morning before they’re meant to host the Kings, Gabe suddenly looms over where Tyson is examining kitchen items to upgrade his protein shake from _garbage_ to _can be choked down_.

“Hi,” Gabe says just as Tyson reaches for the bottle of honey, making him jump and knock the honey over. The cap opens upon impact on the counter and a bit of the contents dribbles out before Tyson can scoop it up and, leaning low over the counter to block Gabe’s view, wipes the honey up with his fingers and licks them. “Gross. I saw that.”

“What do you want?” Tyson asks, turning all the way around and crossing his arms over his chest as sternly as he can manage. “Can’t a guy eat in peace around here?”

“Not when he’s eating straight off the counter, no,” Gabe says, eyes dancing. His mouth stays open and he clearly has more to say—and Tyson really can’t blame him, just has to be thankful Gabe’s never seen Tyson eat candy off the floor well past the safety of the five-second rule, a practice for Nate’s eyes only—but he stops suddenly, drawing his brow.

“What?” Tyson says when Gabe keeps just standing there, not saying anything with his dumb mouth open. It’s wet and a little red—he’d had a lollipop before and Tyson left the fucking room for a reason, thanks—and Tyson finds himself squaring his shoulders and swallowing hard the longer Gabe just stands there. “What, Gabe? Jesus!”

“You have nice…teeth,” Gabe says. It’s slightly strangled. Tyson stares, then stares some more when no follow up appears to be forthcoming. 

“Excuse me?”

“You just do,” Gabe tells him, rubbing the back of his neck and frowning a little. “All—all there, you know, and not chipmunk-like _at all_ —”

“Oh fuck off,” Tyson says. His face feels hot.

“No, I mean it! You take good care of them. I can’t even tell the fake ones, if you have any.”

“That’s none of your business,” Tyson tells him, tightening his crossed arms over his chest. “Seriously, what is this? Did you lose a bet?”

“No I _made_ a bet,” Gabe says, putting his hands up. He smiles grimly. “And you did too. Well not a bet. A resolution.”

Tyson thinks on that. His only resolution was to call his mom at least once a day and he’d already broken that because they had an argument over the phone about Gilmore Girls, but it’s fine. The first week of January isn’t even over, he has time to make up for it (and plenty of time to make his mom realize that Logan is just as much of a punk as Jess but worse because he doesn’t have the inner goodness that made Jess to appeal to Rory in the first place). 

Then he thinks a bit more and remembers a locker room bit he’d done with the PR crew a few weeks back. “Oh, you mean _that_? Come on, we were kidding.”

“I take my resolutions very seriously, Tyson,” Gabe says, raising an eyebrow in challenge. 

“It’s January 4th. The other day you called me T-Butter and then asked Army who let a Mite sneak into the locker room. I’m older than you!”

“Older but much smaller,” Gabe says, and then he covers his own mouth with his hand and widens his eyes. “I mean—I’m just stating that as a fact, not to mock you.”

“You are not. You always mock me. You’re mocking me right now.”

“I am not, I’m sticking to my resolution. I just needed some time to warm up, is all.” Gabe lets his hand drop and shakes out his arms, hopping from foot to foot like he’s actually physically warming himself up. 

Tyson wonders how he could avoid getting his ass kicked if he poured honey in Gabe’s hair. He probably couldn’t. It might be worth it. His hand clenches around the bottle. “I swear it, Tyson, I will not make fun of you for the rest of the year. I will give you at least two compliments every time we see each other. I can do this. I like challenges.”

“Oh really?” Tyson asks, making as ridiculous a face as he can muster. “Two whole compliments?”

“Yes,” Gabe says, his face twitching as his smile grows faint. “I still have to think of another one, but—look at all the material I’ve got.” He gestures at Tyson and Tyson scowls at him. 

“You’re so full of crap.”

“I’m way better at this resolution than you.” 

“You are not. You’re a fake!” Tyson looks at the honey in his hand, thinking. Then he picks it up. “So you’re not going to make fun of me at all, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Not for anything?”

“Not for anything. Totally mockery free all year.”

“Really? Not even if I just eat this honey out of the bottle right in front of you?”

Gabe’s face contorts a little. “Why on earth would you do that? Don’t be gross.”

“What if I want to be gross? I’m hungry.” Tyson opens the bottle and tips it against his lips.

“Tyson.”

“It’s happening,” Tyson says, and he takes a slow, defiant gulp. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then gives that an even more defiant lick. 

Gabe’s lips clamp together and his nostrils flair. Tyson waits for it—he’s going to get called Pooh Bear, he knows it, he’s ready for it—and he can see the insults just bursting behind Gabe’s lit up eyes. He’s got this.

But then Gabe takes a breath, lets his head roll on his neck for a second or two, and then says, “You have a very adventurous palate.” He sounds like he’s talking to a complete stranger, laughter carefully squeezed out of his tone.

Tyson is pissed. “What? Are you kidding me?” He’s going to have to eat more honey, for god’s sake. 

“I told you. I can do this.” Gabe grins at him, fierce and determined. “I’m going to win.”

“Win what?” Tyson demands, but Gabe just claps him on the shoulder and spins around to head out, high-fiving Factor as he walks in past him.

“Don’t eat any more honey!” Gabe calls. Tyson scowls after him, then scowls at Factor when he stands there looking between the bottle of honey in Tyson’s hand and Tyson’s slightly sticky mouth. 

“I’m not going to,” Tyson says, and Factor nods patiently but also reaches out with a careful smile. 

“Still, just in case—” He gently takes the honey from Tyson and takes it to the sink. Tyson huffs and picks up his protein shake, gulping it down like a warrior and attributing his persistent scowl to the horrid taste instead of Gabe’s smug, retreating back.

 

 

So apparently Gabe’s playing a game that Tyson hasn’t agreed to, and Tyson has had just about enough after like three straight days of weird compliments. Gabe tells him he likes his coat, that the copious amounts of product he puts in his hair smells nice, and that his ability to maintain such a close friendship with Nate is admirable. It’s pretty much the worst few days of Tyson’s life, if he’s being totally honest. 

Every compliment is accompanied by a smug little smile and a light in Gabe’s eyes that Tyson hates because it makes him even more attractive, which has to be illegal in at least the entire continental United States and a minimum of three Canadian provinces. 

“I can’t fucking take this,” Tyson tells Nate on the bus, following a brief and polite conversation with Gabe about how Tyson did a good job remembering to button the top button of his shirt behind his tie. He didn’t even say “for once”; it was a total nightmare. 

Gabe has his headphones on now, sitting serenely next to Ginner. He smiles when he catches Tyson scowling back at him over the top of his seat and gives him a little wave. Tyson ducks back down and scowls at Nate. “Seriously. Something has to be done about this. He’s driving me crazy.”

“Yeah it’s weird as hell,” Nate says, also frowning back at Gabe briefly before turning his frown back on Tyson. “Like, you’ve had jam on your cheek since we left the hotel and he didn’t say a word. Gives me the creeps, to be honest with you.”

“What?” Tyson yells, ignoring everyone looking at him as he pulls out his phone to use the front-facing camera as a mirror. He groans and slumps in his seat when he sees the red smudge across his face. “Goddamnit, Nate.” He spits in his hand and starts rubbing furiously at his cheek while Nate shrugs and gets out his own headphones. “Gabe was right.”

“About what?”

“It _is_ admirable that I’ve managed to stay friends with you this long. You’re the absolute worst.”

“What are you, writing them all down?” Nate asks, laughing hard at him. “Are you keeping a diary? ‘January 7th, Gabe told me my breath smells as nice as Zoey’s—’”

“Why don’t you go to hell, eh?” Tyson spits, turning away from Nate to glare out the window. In the seat in front of them, Max is laughing at everything he’s overheard and Tyson kicks the back of his seat, hard. “You too, Talbo.”

“Whatever,” Nate says, still chuckling. The laughter dies down and he nudges Tyson after a minute of the cold shoulder. “Hey, man.”

“Go away.”

“Okay, but. You’ve got jam on your shirt, too. Thought you’d want to know.”

Max bursts into laughter again and when Nate joins in there’s no stopping them; Tyson has to clamber over Nate to get free and find a seat by himself, ignoring them both going, “Oh, come on!” as he goes. He also ignores Gabe’s curious eyes from the back, and he ignores Nate up until they’re getting ready for warmups and Nate produces a bag of M&Ms from his gear bag and gives them to Tyson.

“Peace, okay?” Nate says, and Tyson rolls his eyes and puts the M&Ms in his stall. Later, after the game and the media and their showers, Tyson picks the bag back up ready to snack and Gabe sidles up out of nowhere, wiping his hair with a towel.

“Don’t start.”

“It’s really great that you can inspire so much loyalty in people,” Gabe says. He dries behind his ear and Tyson wants him to put on a shirt, really badly. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I just think it’s sweet that Nate literally keeps candy on hand just to give you when you’re cranky.” 

“For god’s sake, now you’re going to ruin my M&Ms too?” Tyson says, turning to glare at everything except for Gabe’s nipples. “Why are you doing this to me?” 

“I’m not, I’m—”

“You’re cruel,” Tyson tells him, going for full drama. It works, at last; Gabe finally looks somewhat chastised, especially when Tyson drops the M&Ms on his bench and ignores them to finish getting dressed in his street clothes. 

“Tyson—”

“No, go away. I don’t want pity M&Ms.” He’s going to eat them as soon as he’s back at the hotel and he _knew_ Nate kept candy around for when Tyson gets cranky, but he’s enjoying winning the upper hand in this stupid new dynamic with Gabe for once. 

For a moment, it seems as though Gabe is going to dig his heels in, and Tyson knows how stubborn he can be, especially about “challenges”. But then Max comes over and slings an arm around Gabe’s shoulders, telling him to “put that all away, think of the children” and Tyson is left alone with his M&Ms and the smallest hint of satisfaction at finally getting Gabe to back down from the stupid backhanded compliments junk.

Tyson’s not at all prepared to get to his locker stall at their next practice and find a giant bag of M&Ms there, with a post-it note stuck to the top: _Not pity M &Ms, I just think your sweet tooth is cute. No joke. –GL _

__Burning red for an entirely different reason, Tyson looks up and catches Gabe’s eye but Gabe doesn’t approach him, just smiles a bit and then turns to talk to Dutchy.

“I have to do something about this,” Tyson tells Nate later when they go to get lunch and the M&Ms have been tossed in the backseat of his car. The note is burning a hole in his pocket, and Nate has already read it of course, so he looks over at Tyson and gives him one of his softer smiles.

“You sure about that?” and Tyson groans and thunks his head against his steering wheel.

 

 

Tyson doesn’t actually formulate a plan of attack until a few days later. He’s been talking to his mom again, picking up the streak with some satisfaction, and it’s a little easier when they’re talking less about Gilmore Girls and more about, well.

“So you’ve been talking about Gabe a lot lately,” his mom says when Tyson stops to take a breath, and Tyson stops for longer and thinks back on what he’d just been ranting about. His face feels hot and he’s glad they’re not Skyping; no one can see him except for the older lady who lives across the courtyard from him and falls asleep in her armchair with the light on all the time. Thankfully she’ll be out until 6 am so his shame is private until the sun comes up, at least.

“I guess,” Tyson says, and bites his lip before he can add “but he started it!” thus completing his transformation into a 6-year-old. “It’s just a really annoying situation, okay?”

“Okay,” his mom says patiently. Tyson can hear the smile in her voice and only hopes his dad’s not nearby listening; he’ll never hear the end of it from him if this gets out. His mom has more tact. “Have you considered just giving him a taste of his own medicine?”

“What?”

This time, she can’t totally stifle a laugh, but Tyson wants to know what she means more than he feels offended. “You did promise to say nice things about him too. You could do that instead of, um. Being a passive participant.” 

“How is saying nice things to him going to make him mad?” Tyson asks, but a meaningful, pointed silence is all that answers him until he goes over what he just said and realizes what it sounded like. “Okay, fine, that’s a good point, _I’m_ mad, but it’s different!”

“How is it different?” 

Tyson pulls the phone away from his ear to scowl at it, then puts it back again and starts talking without realizing where the sentence is going to inevitably end up, a standard practice for him. “Because he doesn’t mean the things he says, and I—” Yeah, that’s where it’s going, and Tyson snaps his mouth shut because there are some things so pathetic he shouldn’t say them out loud. Even to his mom. 

“Oh boy,” his mom sighs, and then she just starts telling him about the dinner she and his dad had had at a business meeting in Tempe until he’s calm and hungry. She’s the best, basically. 

He thinks about what she said after that, though, when he’s getting ready for bed, turning off his lights and checking over at his elderly neighbor through the window. He could fight fire with fire, really. Tyson’s carved out a perfectly good niche for himself on this team mocking Gabe with what little material he has; there’s no reason he can’t start giving that a more positive slant. 

It’ll be a bit like poking at a raw, exposed nerve, but he’s a grownup and he’s pined for boys he can’t have before. The slope is only slippery if there’s anything at the bottom and Tyson knows there’s nothing there; they’ll tire of the stupid resolution thing eventually, Nate will pretend to be neutral and declare Tyson the winner and give him victory candy, and everything will go back to normal. Maybe Tyson’s participation can accelerate it.

This will be an even bigger challenge than Gabe’s, so seeing it through will be all the more satisfying. Tyson lies in bed thinking about it until he’s too excited to just think, so he sits up and finds the moleskine notebook and fancy fountain pen Victoria got him for Christmas as basically a joke.

Tyson starts writing down every nice thing about Gabe he can think of, until it’s really late and he’s getting a little gushy and has to make notes— _do not use_. He falls asleep with ink smudged all over the side of his hand from where he rested it on the last page, and in the morning he has ink on his nose from when he rubbed it. He’s still excited. 

And he’s prepared the next time Gabe says, “Nice job remembering to wear socks today, Tys. They match to boot,” as they’re heading into Pepsi Center to get ready for a game, Tyson does not splutter or go red or get angry.

Instead, he smiles calmly up at Gabe and says, “Thanks. You have an incredible smile, Gabriel.”

Next to him, Nate says, “Oh for the love of god,” and he speeds up so he’s walking ahead of both him and Gabe, which is easy because Gabe stops in his tracks. 

“What?” Gabe says, laughing a little. Tyson keeps his own smile plastered on, gritting his teeth a little until he makes eye contact and lets himself get a bit lost in Gabe’s eyes. Then it’s kind of easy to just keep smiling at him. 

“It’s true. I’m sure you hear that all the time, though.” Tyson gives Gabe’s arm a quick pat and squeeze and then hustles to catch up with Nate before he can lock him out of the locker room again, leaving Gabe standing there, stunned.

It feels good, Tyson has to admit. Almost as good as when he found those M&Ms and that note from Gabe, and just about as bittersweet. 

It doesn’t come up again until after the game, when they’re all eating pizza half-dressed and happy because they won. Tyson has half a slice crammed in his mouth while he puts his pants on and listens to Nate recap a goal he’d already recapped three times on the bench when Gabe shoves his way in between them and slings an arm around each of them.

“Hey,” he says, looking right at Tyson. On his other side, Nate says “Hey Gabriel, how are you doing? Oh I’m fine, thanks so much for asking buddy. Glad we had this talk,” and Gabe mostly ignores him to keep looking at Tyson.

Tyson is trapped—he’d gotten his pants halfway up his thighs and then he was going to stand up and pull them the rest of the way over his ass but Gabe got there, and of course Gabe’s not wearing a shirt again. Tyson meets his eyes defiantly with the pizza still in his mouth and pants off and thinks _compliment this_ and then scowls when Gabe does.

“You had a really great game, you know. That pass on Nate’s goal, man—”

“The finish was pretty good too, I’d say,” Nate says bitterly, but Tyson has pulled the pizza out of his mouth to call foul so once again, Nate isn’t acknowledged.

“Hey, wait a sec. That’s a hockey compliment.”

“So?” Gabe says.

“So that doesn’t count, that’s just captain stuff. You say that all the time, sometimes you actually mean it.” 

“I always mean it! Wait a minute—you think I don’t mean the other—”

Tyson makes a loud, obnoxious buzzer noise, which makes Nate laugh at least. Tyson lets go of his pants with the hand not holding the pizza and leans around Gabe to high-five Nate. “You lose already, Landeskog. And I’ve been playing for one day and I’ve already beaten you. Pathetic.” Tyson thinks about it, then pulls himself to sit up straight and says, “But you’re a great competitor, really. It’s been an honor to play against someone with such a determined, winning spirit. Even though you lost.”

“What the hell are you doing?” 

“I’m playing the game! Winning, actually.” Tyson smiles sweetly. “See, you’ve already run out of material and I’ve got tons. I can keep this going the rest of the year if I want to.” He doesn’t really want to—he might die doing that, to be totally honest. But it might be worth it to see that baffled, dumb look on Gabe’s face all the time. It’s attractive, like every other Gabe face, even the crazy ones. Tyson likes being the object of it. 

“I haven’t run out of material. Fine.” Gabe’s nostrils flare for a second before he screws on that carefully bland, composed face that Tyson hates, even though it’s also attractive, goddamn him. “We’re doing this?”

“Hell yeah. Get ready to eat my polite ass.” Nate high-fives him again for that, shaking with laughter, and Gabe finally glares at him, too, before turning back on Tyson and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Fine. Your hair looks really nice like that.” 

“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?” Tyson asks, jabbing his fingers in his wet hair and shaking out the sparse curls. He and everyone else in the room knows he looks like a drowned sewer rat just out of the shower, but Gabe doesn’t flinch.

“Not even close,” Gabe says, lips curling up in a smirk. “I can go all night with this stuff, but I’m in it for the long haul so I’m gonna save some. You’re already way behind.”

“You got a head start!”

“You messed up before, too. Good competitor? Hockey talk. Try again, buddy.”

“Fine. Your eyes are almost as pretty as Nate’s.” Gabe tilts his head back and laughs, and Nate gives Tyson a big, brilliant smile. 

“Thanks, baby,” Nate says, and Tyson winks at him.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” 

“This is going to be so easy,” Gabe says, still laughing at the ceiling. “A piece of cake.”

“Don’t talk about cake, now I want cake,” Tyson says, picking up on his pizza again as a consolation. He stands up to pull on his pants finally, finishes the pizza, and then levels Gabe with a look. “I think you owe me cake after all this.”

“Not yet,” Gabe tells him, grinning lazily up at him. He drapes his arm around Nate’s shoulders again, and Nate leans into him and mirrors his grin. “Winner buys the loser whatever cake he wants. Nate decides because he loves us both equally. Right, Nathan?”

“Sure do, Gabriel,” Nate says, giving them both two thumbs up. “Totally neutral.”

“Terrific,” Tyson says. And then he has to sit back down with them because they’re basically hugging and he wants a hug too, dammit. 

 

 

So then it’s on, for real. Nate sets up a dry erase board in the dressing room of their practice rink and draws a T-chart on it; one side is labelled _Brutes_ and one side is labelled _Landy_ and initially Tyson thinks that’s where he’s tracking the compliments. But then instead of tally marks or any of Tyson’s lovely poetic words, Nate writes their teammates’ names down next to dollar amounts and Tyson realizes they’re taking bets.

“Why the hell is everyone betting on Gabe,” Tyson says, looking at the sad and sparse _Brutes_ side. Gabe, half-naked as always, crosses his arms over his bare chest and shoots a smug grin across the room. “Have they _seen_ Gabe? How do they think I’m going to run out of nice stuff to say first?” He raises his voice. “That counts as a compliment!”

“No it doesn’t!” Gabe calls, and Tyson sighs noisily. 

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?” Nate asks, and Tyson and Gabe both snap, “No!” at the same time.

It’s fine that no one has any faith in Tyson; he’s defied expectations before and he’ll do it again. This is what he tells himself when he checks back in a few days later and sees _Patty_ scrawled under Gabe’s side. “People underestimate you,” Gabe says when he catches Tyson scowling at it. “I know you’re in this to win it. I believe in you.”

Tyson gives him a sidelong glance. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. And that counts as a compliment, by the way.”

“No it does not! We need rules! Nate!”

A bunch of them go out for lunch and Gabe and Tyson set Nate up with a legal pad and a fine-tipped Sharpie. “Write this all down,” Tyson demands. “These are the rules. One: no compliments about the game. They don’t count.”

“Two,” Gabe says. “No hockey compliments. They don’t count for sure, Tyson made that very clear and I can live with it.”

“Three,” Tyson says. “We can’t repeat compliments at each other. If I say that his giant head is very beautiful, he can’t say that _my_ head is beautiful too. It’s unoriginal.” 

“I would never say that about your head,” Gabe mutters. Then he catches himself and straightens up. “Uh, because it’s your eyes that are the most beautiful part of you, really. Your head is just average.”

“Four: it _definitely_ doesn’t count if it’s attached to an _insult_ —”

“How is that an insult? Average isn’t an insult, it’s perfectly acceptable—”

“Guys,” Dutchy says loudly, and Tyson looks around and realizes that everyone else has left the table to get their burritos except for Nate, scribbling on the legal pad, and Dutchy, looking over his shoulder. “I hate to tell you this, but he’s not writing any of this down.” Nate jerks his head up to give Dutchy a narrow-eyed look of poison, and Dutchy picks the pad up and shows it to them. “He’s doodling around rap lyrics, I think.”

“‘I think’,” Nate mimics, snatching the legal pad back. “Quit blowing up my spot, eh?”

Tyson gives Nate the most unimpressed look he can muster as Gabe shakes with barely restrained laughter beside him. Nate shrugs and goes back to his lyrics, so Tyson says, “Factor! We need you to write this down!”

It works out better that way; Factor also has a moleskine notebook. It looks exactly like the one Tyson’s filled with compliment ideas, too many probably—the one he keeps filling on bus rides and plane trips and before he goes to bed. “You _are_ keeping a diary,” Nate says when he sees him doing it, but Tyson shakes his head and snaps it shut.

“It’s not a diary. It’s a plan. I’m gonna win this, Nate, and then you’ll all owe Holds all of your money.” Holds is the only one who bet on him, very reluctantly, because Tyson made him as payback for hitting Tyson with a sucker pass the other night and leaving him high and dry for Big Buff to turn into roadkill. Buff doesn’t need any help turning Tyson into roadkill so Holds totally owes him. 

“I didn’t bet,” Nate reminds him. “I’m neutral.” But he pats Tyson’s shoulder on the way to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and when Ginner snatches the notebook out of Tyson’s hands on the bus the next day because he thinks he’s cheating and messing with the rules in Factor’s notebook, Nate is the one to wrestle it back unharmed. He’s the best person Tyson knows.

“Nate is the best person I know,” Tyson tells Gabe as they’re getting ready to head out onto the ice for their next game. He looks him solemnly in the eyes. “And you’re second best.”

“Yeah?” Gabe says. His eyes are wide and serious, and he nods with a small smile. “That’s very sweet of you to say, Tys.”

“I mean it.”

“Thanks. You’re a great friend, you know?”

“I know,” Tyson says, and Gabe laughs at that and tries to call foul before they have to head out. 

The rules grow as the compliments become more and more varied and detailed—Gabe likes the crinkles around Tyson’s eyes when he laughs; Tyson likes when Gabe’s beard starts to hint at ginger, and so on. Factor’s game to write them all down but the whole team works on enforcing them, passing his notebook around and making loud buzzer noises whenever one of them makes a wrong move. “Is anyone keeping track of this?” Dutchy asks, and Nate says, “I am,” but he is not and everyone knows it. It works anyway. 

Soon, they can’t compliment each other shirtless “because that’s too easy, Tyson,” according to EJ. When Gabe yells, “Nice fucking pass!” in Tyson’s face on the ice, Ginner is quick to make that loud buzzer sound in his ear until Gabe gives him a thorough facewash. “How many different shades of gold are you going to use to describe his hair, Brutes?” Factor asks at breakfast once, and that starts a whole argument over whether or not bronze is a shade of gold and even if it is, _two_ shades of gold is not too many shades and Tyson shouldn’t be getting pinged for lack of originality.

That night, out of spite, Tyson Googles and writes down as many different shades of gold as he can find. Flaxen, honey, butterscotch, dandelion, mustard—he keeps going and he’s ready to use them all before he moves on to the blue of Gabe’s eyes. Cerulean, cobalt, sapphire, sky—he’s going to use them all to make up for all the stuff he’s written in here that he can’t use. That’s the kind of stuff he has to write down otherwise he’s going to say it, and he can’t say it all. 

The game is fun now, combined with the wins they’re putting together and the way the whole team is getting into it. As January fades into February, Tyson thinks fleetingly of when it was just Gabe telling him nice things instead of this whole big thing, but this is still manageable. 

Every once in a while Tyson panics and thinks he should probably tear out the pages of the notebook where he’s written too much, gone too far. He thinks he should probably eat them, just to be safe. _I like the way you really might care about me maybe_ should probably be shredded at the very least, if not burned and ashes scattered all along the riverfront. 

“Someone take his thesaurus away,” Factor says when Tyson says that Gabe’s beautiful dandelion hair is looking thick and healthy today. “Seriously. He’s getting help and he’s cheating.” 

“I like it,” Gabe says. “I think it’s fair. No one’s ever called me a dandelion before.”

“You’re not a dandelion, your hair is dandelion-colored,” Tyson says, grinning. Gabe grins back. It’s fun, even with EJ coming over to shake him and say, “Oh my God, it’s not a thesaurus, he’s looking at paint colors at Home Depot!” and everybody laughs at him. 

“I like your cocoa eyes,” Gabe whispers a few days later, nudging Tyson and smiling against his ear as they pass each other on the bus, and Tyson grins at nothing and then realizes he’s going to need to get a new notebook soon. 

 

 

Things aren’t so great in February. At first Tyson chalks that up to the losses—four in a row isn’t fun—but as losing seeps through the locker room, the game kind of falls away. No more buzzer sounds, Factor’s notebook mostly abandoned on a shelf in his stall, Dutchy giving big, determined compliments to _everyone_ just to keep some spirits up. It’s kind of a huge bummer.

Tyson made a personal commitment, though—well two of them, but he thinks there’s a part of his brain that’s physically incapable of talking to his mother on the phone every day, he’s just not wired that way. But he made this one and so he quietly tells Gabe nice, little things—some of the notebook things, really. 

“I know it’s a hockey thing, okay, whatever,” Tyson tells him softly. “But you’re really good at that,” because Gabe just talked some of the manic edges out of Dutchy’s smile and calmed him down after their latest loss. Somehow the normal banal hockey platitudes just work coming from Gabe’s clear blue eyes and carefully earnest voice and Dutchy looks better. It makes Tyson feel better from afar, knowing Gabe can do that for anyone on the team.

Gabe shrugs. “I’ll take it.” He bumps shoulders with Tyson, sipping water and leaning back against the wall in the hallway outside the locker room that Tyson stopped him in. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Tyson says automatically. 

“Sure? We can talk too, if you want.”

“Nah, I’m good.” It was a bad game for everyone, no one’s proud of it, and in their division it gives them good reason to panic. But Tyson doesn’t talk about this kind of stuff with Gabe, even a Gabe determined to win at being nice to him. 

“I really don’t mind,” Gabe says. “We can go get some food? You must be starving.”

Tyson gives Gabe a little grin. “Come on, finish it. ‘You’re always starving’, let’s go.”

“Not doing that anymore, remember?” Gabe tells him, laughing lightly. “I like your appetite. I love how passionate you are about food.” He’s using that earnest voice again, and Tyson finds himself blushing completely unnecessarily, ducking his head. The word _love_ rings through his ears. 

“Nice,” he says with shaky laughter. He shakes his head. “That was a good one, where’s Factor to score it?” No one’s around, Gabe bites his bottom lip, and Tyson doesn’t say: _I kind of miss you giving me a hard time about food. That was our thing. I liked when you teased me all the time._

“That one’s a freebie,” Gabe says, reaching out to pat Tyson’s arm and then keeping ahold of his elbow. “Not keeping score right now.”

“Uh, technically I don’t think anyone’s been keeping score. I’m still gonna win, but I’m just saying—”

“Let’s go eat something and talk.” Gabe puts some force in his words, eyes tight on Tyson’s until he has to look away. 

Tyson swallows hard, looks around, and then says, “Yeah, I gotta get going, Gabe. Next time, okay?”

“Next time,” Gabe echoes incredulously, narrowing his eyes. “All right, Tys.”

“Sorry,” Tyson says for some reason, and then he escapes, taking steadying breaths once he’s at his car and finally alone. 

At home, he eats standing at his kitchen counter, looks at the moleskine notebook full of embarrassing word vomit about how wonderful Gabe is, closes it with a soft and unsatisfying snap, and calls his mom. He’s not sure how long he’s going to be able to keep one resolution when it’s going like this; might as well give the other one a fair shot again.

It definitely starts getting more difficult as they start picking up wins again and the team picks up on the game once more. Factor takes things up with a ruthless gusto Tyson suspects has something to do with the trade deadline fast approaching, and the thought makes his throat feel tight so he lets Factor tell him, “Listen, you can’t call Gabe pulchritudinous if you don’t know what it means. No, don’t show me where you found it on Google, stop it! These are not your words!” 

He makes the buzzer sound in Tyson’s face. Tyson sighs. 

It’s not really as fun this time around, even with the wins and the drama and Tyson’s new word of the day app. Something got a little too real in that hallway and Tyson doesn’t know if his heart’s really in it anymore. 

He’s not sure Gabe’s is, either, but he’s sure the explanation for that is far simpler than Tyson’s: Gabe is getting bored with this. Tyson doesn’t blame him; there are only so many times you make stuff up about someone and fake it like it means something, and there are only so many times Tyson can hear it all and still keep himself from believing it’s all true. It’s pretty rough.

He’s not a quitter, not really—Barrie men don’t quit (unless they do, but that’s the unspoken part of their little family saying)—so he keeps going but it feels perfunctory, rote. “Flaxen again?” Factor asks one morning, and Tyson shrugs. “You’re losing.”

“I am not.”

“You so are. This is weak sauce, man. Gabe’s gonna win.”

“Well no one would be surprised, right?” And Factor frowns at him until it gets awkward; then he makes the buzzer sound. 

Gabe’s totally going to win, though. He’s way better at pretending to care about stuff like this than Tyson is and he’s better at humoring their teammates, who are all still super invested. “I don’t know how you do it, man,” Ginner says when Gabe tells Tyson, “I love your tie, that color looks great on you,” and Tyson looks down at the pale green tie his dad gave him to wear to “business meetings” with his agent and makes a face. 

“Bite me, Ginner,” Tyson says, before remembering to thank Gabe and halfheartedly compliment the fit of his pants. Gabe’s grin fades a little, but that’s worth it to not blurt out “your ass looks insane in those and I want the seams to split so I can bite it, thanks.” He’s not even going to write that one down except to confess it to a priest maybe. 

“Seriously,” Ginner says. “A hero. This win is gonna be legendary.”

“I’m standing right here,” Tyson says, waving his hands around. He wants to go—it’s after a game, they lost, and Tyson’s ready to be out of these clothes and in front of the TV. He’s tired of a few different things, and both the hockey game and the resolutions game are sticking in the back of his throat. Nate is already shooting him sidelong glances and looks prepared to go find emergency crankiness candy. Tyson isn’t going to say no.

It all gets worse when Ginner holds up a moleskine notebook that Tyson immediately recognizes as his, not Factor’s; Tyson’s has Hogwarts House stickers on his, and he feels Nate tense up and suck in a breath as he recognizes it too. “Hey,” Tyson says, and Ginner grins.

“Nope, I caught you with the rules book again. No more cheating, you’re not messing with these anymore—”

“Those aren’t the fucking rules, it’s the wrong notebook!” Nate snaps as Tyson holds out his hand and tries not to shake a little. Gabe is right there. The notebook is right next to him, and they’re starting to draw a crowd in the room, and—

“Give that back,” Tyson says, and Ginner laughs. 

“No way, no more cheating Tys, I’ve got money on this—”

“Give it over,” and Nate shoves around Tyson to make a grab for it, letting out an angry huff when Ginner dances out of reach. 

“Not happening!”

“Factor!” Tyson yells when Ginner starts _opening it_ , his heart pounding in his ears. “Ryan, come on, show him the right notebook, fucking give it back!” Nate moves forward again and Tyson’s pretty sure he’s about to full-on tackle Ginner but everything stops when Gabe just plucks the notebook out of Ginner’s hands.

It’s still open. Tyson’s life flashes before his eyes as Nate says, “Gabe, no!” and Gabe, grinning a bit uncertainly, takes a look at the notebook. 

“Factor, for God’s sake, get the other notebook over here,” Nate yells but Tyson can’t speak. He’s just frozen, watching Gabe read—he could be reading anything, really. Maybe about how his laugh makes Tyson feel like he’s by the water back home with the sun on his face. Or how he loves it when Gabe smiles at him with all his teeth, big and blinding and a little nasty sometimes. 

Or _I like the way you really might care about me maybe ._ Tyson wants to die. 

Whatever he reads makes Gabe’s grin slide off his face and his brow furrow, and finally, _finally_ , Ginner realizes that Nate and Tyson were somewhat serious and he stops squawking at Gabe for sabotaging himself. Factor comes up behind them too, frowning hard and putting a hand on his back, holding the notebook up with the other hand. 

“What’s up?” he asks solemnly, and everyone is quiet.

Then Gabe closes the notebook with a soft thud and clears his throat. “Tyson wins,” Gabe says, and Tyson feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Game over. Give Holds all your money. Tyson, hey—”

“What!” half the room shouts, and Ginner tries to grab the notebook back but Gabe shoves him away and starts to move forward, towards Tyson. Tyson backs up and lets Nate deal with Ginner and Factor, their voices falling away as Nate declares him the official winner and everyone protests except for Holds, shouting with joy.

Gabe keeps looking right at him; he’s clutching the notebook really hard. “Is this—” and Tyson finally gets his tongue unstuck and his limbs unfrozen and takes the opportunity to snatch the notebook out of Gabe’s hand. 

“Look,” Tyson says, no idea how he’s going to finish the sentence. Gabe waits, and Tyson swallows hard, and then he says, “I gotta go,” which is probably the only thing he could possibly say in this situation.

“No way,” Gabe says immediately, looking stricken. “Come on, let’s get out of here and talk.”

“No. I have to—you weren’t supposed to see any of this, okay?”

“Tyson—”

“No, I’ve gotta _go_.” He’s starting to feel a little panicky, like he’s either going to throw a fit or throw a puck right to the other team, and he has to get out of there before something stupid happens. Gabe seems to pick up on this, because even though his jaw sets and twitches and his eyes are blazing steel, he says, “Fine. Okay,” and lets Tyson escape without protest.

 

 

“I won,” Tyson tells his mom miserably over the phone. Then they talk absolutely nothing except for Gilmore Girls for the rest of the 40 minute conversation; she finally finished her rewatch. 

At and around the rink, Tyson avoids Gabe as much as possible, and Gabe apparently lets him. Tyson’s pretty sure Nate talked to him. The only real reminders of what happened come from their teammates, complaining about losing, and the only satisfying part is watching Patty have to give Holds an envelope full of bills. He’ll have to thank Gabe for that someday, when he can talk to him again without triggering stressful humiliation nightmares about Gabe reading the rest of the notebook.

Nate tries to talk him into talking to Gabe. He does a pretty good job of convincing Tyson that none of this is a big deal, Gabe didn’t even read anything super embarrassing, it’s totally fine and no, Tyson doesn’t have to request a trade to Winnipeg, walk out into the icy tundra and never return, leaving only a small frozen corpse behind. He tells Tyson he’s being a little dramatic; “At least request a trade to a SoCal team, go to the beach and walk out into the water until you drown. That’s a way more badass way to do it.”

“Are you kidding me? Do you know what drowning victims look like? No thanks. I want the cold embrace of a frozen death instead.” 

“You hate the cold.”

“That’s the _point_ , Nate! It’s death!”

So yeah, Tyson’s coping pretty well. One day he dodges Gabe coming down the hallway by jumping into a janitor’s closet, tripping over a bucket, and needing to ice his knee before game time. Everything’s going to be okay.

He can keep telling himself that until one night on an off day when he comes home and Gabe is sitting in the hallway outside of his apartment with a pink box on his lap, looking at his phone. “Hi,” Tyson says, voice trembling, and Gabe looks up and smiles at him.

“Hey.”

“How’d you get past the doorman?” Tyson asks, a little grumbly, a lot nervous. He can’t get his key steady enough to hit the lock and he’s suddenly very sweaty. 

“He was nice. His name is Albert.”

“I know his name, he’s my doorman! Why didn’t you text me?” _Why are you here_ will have to wait until when Tyson can actually get through his fucking door, before he makes what will surely be a daring escape out his living room window. He hopes the fall doesn’t scare his courtyard neighbor but needs must.

“Because I figured you were with Nate, and he could use the company,” Gabe says, and he’s right, because the trade deadline passed and Factor is still here but Max isn’t, and it’s been tough for Nate to lose his landlord. 

Tyson thinks of Nate, who is just a kid and can handle losing people like that, and takes a deep breath. He calms down, gets the key in the door, and lets Gabe go in in front of him like an adult that has his shit together. No harm in pretending again at this stage.

“So what’s up,” Tyson says, faux casual. Gabe sets the box down on the kitchen counter, throws his jacket over the back of a chair, and then opens the box very pointedly. 

“We made a deal,” Gabe says as Tyson looks over the beautiful chocolate cake inside. It has M&Ms lined up in the frosting spelling out his initials and dollops of burgundy piping all around it, and Tyson has to swallow hard. “You won, fair and square.”

“Really?” Tyson asks before he can take it back, though then he wants to. The notebook is locked in the drawer where he keeps his birth certificate and his SIN card but it still feels like it’s printed out all over the walls of Tyson’s place, every word in bold, giant letters for Gabe to keep reading. 

“You did. Enjoy the cake.” Gabe smiles softly at him. “Not even gonna mock you if you eat the whole thing.”

“Why?” Tyson says. “I win, so it’s over. So you can mock me all you want.”

“I don’t really want to anymore,” Gabe says, shrugging. 

Because he’s an idiot masochist who can never quite get out of his own way, Tyson says, “But I want you to. I liked it.” 

He wrote this down in the notebook, but apparently Gabe didn’t read that part, because he looks surprised. “Really?”

“I mean, yeah. It was…” He has to search for the words because all he has is the truth, which is still so incredibly embarrassing he wants to hide in the tiny space between his couch and his floor and never come out again. The words spill out anyway, and Tyson doesn’t know why he got so upset over Gabe seeing the notebook; he’s always game to hang himself anyway, apparently. “You meant that, you know? That was the real stuff. So I missed it, kind of.” 

He laughs nervously and gestures vaguely at his bedroom, where the notebook is. “I mean, you know, right? I don’t know what you read—” 

“I meant _everything_ ,” Gabe says firmly, eyes blazing. “Everything I said to you in the game. That was all real.”

“Nah, come on, I know you—”

“No you _don’t_ ,” Gabe tells him, voice so harsh that Tyson swallows the rest of his protests. “So I’m telling you. I’m not writing it down and hiding it away, I’m not playing a game—this is real. I liked saying nice things to you and the game let me do that without it getting weird, but what I really wanted to do was—”

He breaks off, taking a breath, and Tyson’s heart may or may not be pounding out of his chest. 

“This,” Gabe says, and he comes around the counter, takes Tyson in his arms, and kisses him hard.

Tyson kisses back before he can even think about it. He leans into Gabe’s hold and takes a few moments to be thankful he didn’t get traded to Winnipeg or a SoCal team, didn’t walk out into the icy tundra or the Pacific; didn’t jump out his window and scare his neighbor to death. He’s here, kissing Gabe with cake on the counter and suddenly every humiliation that led up to this point was worth it. 

Gabe kisses him until their breaths are both coming a little short, chests rising and falling together. Tyson’s sure Gabe can feel Tyson’s heart beating—he’s pretty sure the people downstairs can feel his heart beating, and when Gabe smiles at him it gets worse.

“Oh,” Tyson says with great clarity, and Gabe laughs and kisses each corner of his mouth. “That was—didn’t see that coming, really.”

“I know, you dick,” Gabe says, rolling his eyes. “You’re an idiot. Usually when people make a resolution to be nice to someone, it means they’re really making a resolution to—”

“—to bang them?” Tyson asks. Gabe heaves a heavy sigh into his hair, pulling him closer, and Tyson finds himself smiling uncontrollably. “And thank god you’re back to insulting me. Call me an idiot again, thanks.”

“Idiot,” Gabe whispers, leaning in and kissing him again. “Fine. I’ll call you an idiot every day, as long you know what it means.”

“I think I get it now,” Tyson says. He pushes a kiss up into Gabe’s mouth this time, firm and insistent, before pulling away slightly but keeping their foreheads touched together. “And uh. I think you know what this means. Right?”

Gabe nods, his cheeks going a little red. “Yep. I mean, I was hoping, even before I read the—you know. But I get it now, too.” He ducks his head, his hair brushing against Tyson’s nose. “I’m really glad.”

“Me too,” Tyson says. And then he takes Gabe’s hand, sits him down on the couch, draws the curtains completely closed, and drops down in Gabe’s lap. “Let me show you.”

“All right,” Gabe says, laughing into Tyson’s next kiss, bringing his big hands up to cradle Tyson’s hips. They keep going like that until they’re really breathing hard, chests heaving more than rising and falling. 

And then they have to take their clothes off—“I’m going to die if you’re not naked in 10 seconds,” Tyson says, watching Gabe squirm out of his clothes beneath him with wide and hungry eyes. 

“You too,” Gabe says, and when Tyson doesn’t immediately comply because he’s too busy trying not to drown in his own drool looking at all of Gabe’s flushed, bare skin, his dick hard against his stomach, Gabe spanks his ass lightly and makes Tyson jolt. “Come on, lazy.”

“Do that again,” Tyson says breathlessly, and Gabe laughs hard at him, wrestles him down onto the couch, and starts taking his clothes off for him. 

“Of course, I’ve gotta do all the work. Should’ve known.”

“I don’t care what you have to do, just keep doing that!”

“You’re ridiculous,” Gabe says, and Tyson doesn’t argue the point, just pushes his erection up into Gabe’s stomach and thrusts a little until Gabe reaches down and spanks him again. Tyson lights up.

After that it’s a lot of grinding, some more light spanking that Tyson can’t be bothered feeling embarrassed about—it’s weird how that went out the door as soon as Gabe told him how he felt; it kind of feels like an all-you-can-eat buffet opened and he’s got the all clear to eat dessert for dinner. 

He’s not embarrassed when he shoves Gabe around with all of his strength and Gabe goes, easy and willing, until Tyson is naked in his lap and mumbling about getting on his dick ASAP. “This is what you wanted to show me?” Gabe asks as they fumble around for lube and a condom and he starts stretching Tyson out. He kisses Tyson’s wide open mouth again, sliding his tongue in and out quickly before biting at Tyson’s jaw. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” Tyson says, head thrown back and gasping it out. “Yeah, come on, get in me, I’ll show you everything.”

“You’re so romantic,” Gabe says. “Made of poetry.” 

“Your _dick_ is made of poetry, come on!” 

Gabe takes the dick in question and puts the condom on, slicking lube over top until Tyson loses patience and takes it away from him. He lines himself up and sinks down with a low, slow groan, settling for a few minutes to adjust. Gabe squeezes his ass and breathes out hard and steady.

They’re eye-level like this, and Tyson looks into Gabe’s eyes for a second and thinks of how all the shades of blue really weren’t enough for how incredible they are, lit up like this and all over Tyson, for Tyson. None of the stupid things he wrote down were really enough for what he feels, and he doesn’t even know if _this_ is enough. 

For now, he has to work with what he’s got, though, and so he fucks himself in sharp, sure movements until Gabe is just groaning continuously beneath him and holding him tight. Gabe’s eyes slide shut but Tyson keeps his wide open, not wanting to miss a second, lost in watching Gabe get lost in pleasure, so it’s almost a surprise when Gabe freezes up beneath him and comes, smothering the sound he makes with his mouth latched at Tyson’s neck.

Tyson stills, letting him come down a bit. As he sits there panting, trying not to squirm on Gabe’s softening dick, Gabe’s hand fits between them and jerks Tyson off in smooth, careful strokes until Tyson cries out and goes off, collapsing harder in Gabe’s arms. 

Even there, a puddled mess on top of Gabe, beautifully sweaty and hard and still breathless beneath him, Tyson has to hope Gabe knows how he feels, just how _much_ he feels. When Gabe squeezes him hard again, muttering soft things about bed and cake, the hope grows. Maybe his next resolution should be figuring out what else he can do to make sure Gabe knows; maybe he should never stop trying to make sure of that.

“You can have some of the cake,” Tyson says; a good start. Gabe’s bright, breathless laugh tells him he got his point across.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't checked out Emily's Gabe and Tyson [primer](http://emilyisobsessed.tumblr.com/post/154391856594/gabe-landeskog-and-tyson-barrie-a-primer) yet, please do!!! It's so great! They're so great!
> 
> Also I promise I posted the entire fic this time. :~)


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